Credible Allegations (Aljazeerah)

Human rights groups say the video fits in with "credible allegations" they have received about the conduct of Pakistani troops. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in June that 282 extra-judicial killings by the army had taken place in the Swat region in the past year.

Amnesty International told Al Jazeera that while it could not confirm the authenticity of the video, but that it has "received credible reports of suspected insurgents being summarily executed by the Pakistani security forces in Pakistan's swat valley."

"There have also been a number of sightings of mass graves in the region, with notes attached to the dead bodies, warning local people not to join the Taliban otherwise they would meet the same fate,"  said Maya Pastakia, Amnesty's specialist in Afghan and Pakistan. She said it was impossible to definitively tell who was behind the killings, pointing out that tribal conflicts could be playing out in an environment of chaos and insecurity.

Human Rights Watch says it has received "numerous credible reports of extra-judicial executions allegedly committed by soldiers operating in Swat," adding that the Pakistani military has not investigated the allegations sufficiently.

Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Watch's South Asia Director, also called on the Pakistani authorities to investigate the video, and if it turns out to be genuine, to hold those responsible to account.

"We hope this is not true, but the government of Pakistan must investigate thoroughly. We have documented allegations in the past of extra-judicial killings carried out by the Pakistani military," she told Al Jazeera.

http://english.aljazeera.net//news/asia/2010/09/2010930102124776944.html

Reuters, Yahoo and daily Dawn

The incident was purported to have taken place in Swat Valley, home to about 1.3 million people and the site of a Pakistani military operation last year to take back the former Taliban stronghold.

Swat also is a focal point among human rights groups, which have documented cases of suspected extra-judicial killings and torture there by Pakistan's army -- allegations Islamabad has denied.

Human Rights Watch briefed U.S. State Department and congressional officials earlier this year about evidence of more than 200 summary executions in Swat of suspected Taliban sympathizers. At the time, senior Obama administration officials told Reuters they had raised the accusations with Islamabad. Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, said although the video's authenticity remained a subject of debate, the occurrence of such abuses was not.

"We have documented extra-judicial killings by the Pakistani military in Swat," he said. "So there's no question that this kind of thing has happened, whether this particular video is authentic or not."

Senator Patrick Leahy, author of the U.S. legislation banning assistance to foreign military units facing credible accusations of abuses, warned the video could have "implications" if confirmed. "Anyone who watches this would be shocked by it," Leahy said.

Human Rights Watch says the Army was mainly targeting civilians who had supported the Taliban when they controlled Swat or were suspected of providing them food or shelter. Allegations of abuse include torture and the disappearance of suspects, some of whom later turn up dead. It also documented cases of illegal detention. Malinowski said such abuses ran counter to U.S. counter-insurgency strategy, which seeks to marginalize insurgents by winning popular support. "The question is whether the Pentagon is true to its convictions that these kinds of abuses make an effective counter-insurgency struggle impossible," he said.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE68T5N420100930

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100930/tpl-uk-pakistan-video-usa-47c7853.html

http://beta.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/35-Pakistan-army-killings-back-in-spotlight-over-video-ak-03

Web site financed and operated by Zardari House and President House.

The question is – where is the media? While the media is eager to jump at the slightest hint of a scandal when it concerns politicians there seems to be a complete silence on the part of the media in covering this issue. Both the local and foreign media are silent on this shocking video. It should be noted that HRCP and HRW have been warning, for over a year, of the reports of extra-judicial killings in Swat following the military operation there. According to HRW in a report published in July 2010 the army had carried out 238 extra-judicial killings in Swat. According to Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas at the time:

Now there seems to be video evidence to document these claims. So far the only response from the military (or its supporters) has been to remove the videos from websites like Youtube as fast as they can be uploaded. They seem to think that by removing instances of the video from the public sphere they can make the issue go away. In this they are ably aided by the media which willingly maintains a wall of silence on all matters concerning military misconduct, either out of fear or complicity.

Here is an earlier account recorded by HRW from a local resident of Swat of an extra judicial killing which bears a great deal of similarity to the events shown in the video above:

http://criticalppp.com/archives/23532

BBC: The HRW report says that while police have also been involved in the killings, most of them have been carried out by the army. It details seven cases where Taliban suspects have been arrested and taken away by the army. Their bodies have later been found with bullet wounds and marks of torture. In one case, the report names a specific unit of the army, the 12th Punjab regiment, as being responsible.

According to the report, the regiment detained a resident of the Matta area of Swat, Farman Ali, along with two other men on 28 March this year. The bodies of the other two men were later produced by the military and presented as Taliban militants who had allegedly been killed in a clash with the army. Then Mr Ali's body, with a gunshot wound to the head, turned up in a field on 26 May. "The Pakistani military has yet to understand that a bullet in the back of the head is simply not the way to win hearts and minds in Swat," says Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan representative for Human Rights Watch (HRW), in the report.

"Killing terrorism suspects and their relatives in cold blood is vicious, illegal and constitutes an appallingly bad counter-terrorism practice that just creates more enemies."

'Extraordinary methods'

Local citizens have told HRW that the men were arrested by the army and that they were not connected to the Taliban.

He added: "The situation in Swat was extraordinary and required extraordinary methods." The HRW report does call for curtailment of aid from the US and UK. But it asks for the target to be the considerable military aid that Pakistan receives from the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10667545

Human Rights Watch: Pakistan: Extrajudicial Executions by Army in swat, July 16, 2010

(New York) - The Pakistani government should immediately investigate reports of summary executions, torture, and mistreatment perpetrated during counterterrorism operations in the Swat valley, Human Rights Watch said today.

Since September 2009, when the Pakistani military re-established control over the valley, Human Rights Watch has received numerous credible reports of extrajudicial executions allegedly committed by soldiers operating in Swat or police acting at the behest of the military. Human Rights Watch has since February researched alleged human rights violations in Swat based on an initial list of 238 suspicious killings provided by local sources and the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Human Rights Watch has corroborated about 50 of these cases. In no case examined by Human Rights Watch was a killing falsely reported, suggesting that the total number of killings is as high as or greater than those reported. The information for each case includes names or numbers of victims, place names, and dates. To date, the Pakistani military has not held any of the perpetrators accountable for these killings.

"The Pakistani military has yet to understand that a bullet in the back of the head is simply not the way to win hearts and minds in Swat," said Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Killing terrorism suspects and their relatives in cold blood is vicious, illegal, and constitutes an appallingly bad counterterrorism practice that just creates more enemies."

On March 28, 2010, for example, Farman Ali, a resident of Matta sub-district, surrendered to the 12th Punjab regiment of the Pakistan Army during a search operation in the Kokari Jambeel area of Swat. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that two unidentified men were also taken into custody at the same time. The bullet-riddled bodies of the two unidentified men were later produced by the military authorities as those of Taliban fighters killed in a military "encounter" with Taliban fighters. Farman Ali remained in the custody of the 12th Punjab regiment, without access to family members.

In mid-May, local residents in Matta reported to Human Rights Watch that military authorities told them to "expect Farman's body soon." On May 26, his body was found dumped in a field with a gunshot wound to the head. Human Rights Watch research indicates that from March 28 until the day his body was found, Farman Ali was continuously in military custody.

"It beggars belief that Farman Ali was killed by anyone other than members of the 12th Punjab regiment given that he never left their custody," Hasan said. "Those responsible for ordering and carrying out Farman Ali's execution need to be held accountable."

Local residents also told Human Rights Watch that on February 21, the bodies of two wanted Taliban commanders, Mohammad Aalim (alias Mullah Banorey) and Shams ul Hadi (alias Mullah Shanko), were found in the Maidan sub-district along with the bodies of two men named Murad and Saleem. While the local residents agreed that the former were Taliban commanders, they said that Murad and Saleem had no connection or involvement whatsoever with the Taliban. Yet military commanders claimed at the time that all four men were killed in an "encounter."

These residents told Human Rights Watch that all four men had been rounded up four months earlier in a military raid in the Fatehpur sub-district.

"I knew Murad and Saleem personally," one resident said. "They were absolutely innocent. They had nothing to do with the Taliban. I saw them grow up."

The residents said all four victims had been transferred to an unknown military detention center upon arrest.

Another resident told Human Rights Watch: "On February 16, 2010, the army shot all four dead in the area of the Grid Station in the town. We heard the shots that killed these individuals. The corpses of Mullah Banorey and Mullah Shanko were tied behind military vehicles and dragged publicly in the areas of Char Bagh, Bagh Dheri, and Matta as warning. The people were encouraged to spit at and throw garbage on the bodies of the two dead Taliban commanders, who were feared and hated. But the entire local population knew that Saleem and Murad were innocent. Why did the army kill them?"

The resident said that the local population was afraid to raise the case with the authorities.

"The local people are very angry at their murder but dare not say anything for fear of the army," the resident said.  "When the television shows these days that certain numbers of militants are killed during an ambush,  this is not fact. We have seen so many people picked up from their houses by the army and then their dead bodies thrown in different areas."

The reported cases of alleged extrajudicial killings in Swat follow a similar pattern. In mid-January, 12 corpses, including that of a prominent Taliban leader, Abu Faraj, were found near the Swat River riddled with bullets and bearing torture marks.

The other dead are believed to include nine villagers who had earlier been picked up by the army and remain missing. The body of Ghani, an alleged Taliban supporter picked up and publicly beaten by the army in July 2009, was found in a field in Kuza Bandi on January 10 with one bullet wound in the head and three in the chest. On January 2, the body of "Humanyun" (an alias) was found dumped outside his house, showing visible torture marks and broken bones; the military had detained him and his brother on October 27 on their return to Swat. Humanyun's brother was released on December 29. He had been tortured, and both of his legs had been broken.

The army picked up Ayub Khan at his home in Lunday Kase, Mingora on November 23, badly beat him in front of his family, and took him away in a military vehicle. On December 28, local residents saying their dawn prayers heard a shot and found his body, covered in torture marks, in a nearby stream as an army vehicle drove away. Islam Khan was picked up in October 2009 from his house in Imam Dheri, Swat in an army raid. His body was found 15 days later near the Swat River with extensive torture marks and his hands and legs broken. Shortly after the body was recovered, a team of soldiers and police came to his house, told his family not to mention the incident or their house would be demolished, and took the body away.

"By abusing local people, the Pakistani military is perpetuating the lawlessness on which the Taliban thrives," Hasan said. "Real peace and security will remain elusive in Swat so long as the military neither follows nor seeks to establish the rule of law."

Human Rights Watch said that while reports of alleged summary executions linked to the military had declined in recent months, they had not ended. The military should investigate reported killings and send unequivocal orders down the chain of command that those responsible for such killings would be held accountable, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch noted that since the military regained control of the Swat valley, there had been a marked improvement in the overall security situation. Public floggings and hangings perpetrated under Taliban control have largely ended. Local residents told Human Rights Watch that under military control, Taliban vigilante activities and tribunals have also largely ended.

The United States provides substantial military assistance to Pakistan, yet that support is conditioned on compliance with the Leahy Law. That law requires the US State Department to certify that no military unit receiving US aid is involved in gross human rights abuses, and when such abuses are found, they are to be thoroughly and properly investigated.

Human Rights Watch called upon the United States, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan's other military allies to urge Pakistani authorities to end abusive practices in Swat and to hold accountable all personnel, regardless of rank, responsible for serious human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch called upon the United States to review the possible responsibility of military units receiving US military aid for alleged abuses in Swat and to take appropriate action.

"Civilians already enduring Taliban abuses should not have their misery compounded by the military's behavior," Hasan said. "Pakistan's allies need to press the country's military to ease the suffering of the people of Swat, not exacerbate it."

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/07/16/pakistan-extrajudicial-executions-army-swat

Pakistan's Army accused of extra-judicial killings

By Phil Stewart, WASHINGTON, Mon Apr 5, 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pakistani army is facing fresh accusations of carrying out extra-judicial killings and torture, claims which could threaten U.S. funding for any units singled out for abuse.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said it had briefed U.S. State Department and congressional officials about mounting evidence of more than 200 summary executions in Swat Valley in the past eight months of suspected Taliban sympathizers.

Pakistani Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told Reuters in Islamabad. "Have you seen any sort of report in Pakistani newspapers?"

The Lahore-based Human Rights Commission of Pakistan provided a list of 249 suspected extra-judicial killings from July 30, 2009, to March 22, 2010, saying most of the bodies were found in Swat. It said independent journalists and locals widely believed security forces were behind them.

Officials in Washington said they were taking the accusations of abuse seriously. The Obama administration has raised the matter with Islamabad, officials said. "We have shared our concern about these allegations with senior Pakistani officials and will continue to monitor the situation closely," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has also discussed U.S. concerns with Pakistani military and government officials. "While our strong bilateral relationship with Pakistan and our close partnership in combating terrorism are very important to us, we take allegations of human rights abuses seriously," said Geoff Morrell, Pentagon press secretary.

White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said "we are seeing positive forward motion from our friends" in Pakistan on the issue, but did not elaborate.

SENSITIVE MOMENT

Accusations of rights abuses by the Pakistani military are not new, but the latest allegations come at a highly sensitive moment for U.S.-Pakistan relations. Washington, which faces frequent criticism in Pakistan following suspected CIA drone strikes on militants, wants to strengthen ties with Islamabad. It also wants to encourage more operations against Islamic extremists following the Pakistani military's success in Swat and also in South Waziristan.

But Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said the pace of extra-judicial killings in Pakistan was "not slowing down." The United States is obliged to enforce a law authored by Senator Patrick Leahy banning assistance to foreign military units facing credible accusations of abuses, he said

If they obtain or receive credible information that a particular unit is engaged in this kind of behavior, they have to de-fund the unit," Malinowski said. Human Rights Watch is not yet able to single out any units for the abuses, which also include illegal detention, he said.

"This work has been going on for several months now and we are pleased to see progress being made," he said.

The State Department said U.S. aid was being delivered in full accordance with U.S. law, and added that assistance to Pakistani security forces incorporated human rights training.

BODIES DUMPED

Human Rights Watch said the Army was targeting civilians who had voiced support for the Taliban when they controlled Swat or were suspected of providing them food or shelter. "People are taken away, and sometimes they turn up a few days or weeks later having been tortured. Sometimes they disappear. Sometimes their body is dumped with a bullet in the head," Malinowski said.

He also described cases of illegal detention.

"A son has gone off to fight with the Taliban, and so another son is taken as a hostage," he said. "And the father is told: We will release son No. 2 when son No. 1 turns himself in." He said such abuses ran against U.S. counter-insurgency strategy and could erode support for Pakistan's government. The Army remains popular in Swat, which endured a brutal Taliban rule that included public beheadings and floggings.

The White House National Security Council's Hammer said the Obama administration had briefed Congress on the allegations. Leahy's office declined to comment on the specific allegations of abuse but called for enforcement of U.S. law "so U.S. aid does not go to army units that violate human rights." "And Pakistani authorities need to know how U.S. law is applied," spokesman David Carle said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6340HN20100405?pageNumber=2

Pakistan 'army death squad hangs Taliban body from lamp post

Pakistani security forces have been accused of sending death squads to execute suspected Taliban militants, in one case hanging a body from a lamp post.
By Dean Nelson in Islamabad and Emal Khan in Peshawar, 19 Aug 2009.

The country's leading human rights lawyer, Asma Jahangir, accused the armed forces of waging a campaign of extra-judicial killings in the Swat valley and called for an independent inquiry after reports that 20 bodies were found in a mass grave at the weekend.

The Human Right Commission, which she founded, said it had compiled evidence that at least six of the dead had been shot by the security services.
It also alleged that more than 100 bodies have been found dumped in the streets of towns and villages in Swat since July 13 when displaced residents started returning to their homes after a Taliban offensive was repelled by the army.

In Dargai in the neighbouring Malakand district, the body of a Taliban militant was left hanging from a lamp post with a note pinned to his body saying "anyone who joins the Taliban will meet the same fate". Mimicking a Taliban tactic, the act was a clear warning to the group.

One man from Swat's capital, Mingora, told The Daily Telegraph his brother, a Taliban fighter, had been arrested by soldiers two weeks ago. He alleged that four days later his dead body was found dumped on wasteland by neighbours. Locals said the bodies of four more militants were found in similar circumstances.

An army spokesman denied any of those killed had been in its custody. But Asma Jahangir said she had hard evidence and challenged army claims that local mass graves contained the bodies of militants killed by other Taliban fighters.
"We have allegations to the contrary, from eye witnesses that these were militants but they were not killed by other militants. We're asking for an investigation because no-one should be above the law," she said.

A western diplomat in Islamabad said he was concerned innocent civilians were being killed by mistake. "The local population is glad to see the back of the Taliban. Now we're getting these extra-judicial killings and most of them seem to be bona fide militants, but some were not."
He said security forces had burned down the homes of those who had been mistaken for militants.

"One of the reasons we don't do extra-judicial killings is that mistakes are made. [The Swat operation] was supposed to be the re-establishment of the state's writ, not summary executions," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...lamp-post.html